Evergreen Park residents baffled by bug infestation
EVERGREEN PARK, Ill. (CBS) – A mysterious swarm of insects was bugging Chicago area residents over the weekend.
Dozens of them took to social media to ask neighbors what they were. CBS 2's Marybel Gonzalez went digging for answers.
"I was surprised to see that they were kind of everywhere," said resident Lee Harwig.
In Evergreen Park, social media groups filled with pictures of tiny, black, and winged insects swarming pools, and pillows. Piles of them were on the street.
Gonzalez: "So we're talking thousands and thousands of them?"
Harwig: "Oh yeah, everywhere. As soon as I looked out the backdoor, that's all I could see back here."
Harwig was one of the residents bugged by the infestation. It was her dogs who first altered her to the swarms.
"When I Iet them back, I noticed there were bugs on both of them," she said. "So I grabbed paper towels and started smooshing them."
Her pool was clear on Monday, but some of the bugs were still floating on the edges.
But what were the pesky creatures? CBS 2 took some photos to University of Illinois entomologist Chris Dietrich.
"I can't see quite enough detail from these photos to tell for sure what they are," said Dietrich.
But he did have some theories based on the time of year.
"There are soybean aphids that migrate out of the soybean field," Dietrich said. "They're wingless so they don't fly, but towards the end of the season, they develop a wing form."
But they could also be gnats. There are different types that live in the Chicago area.
"They can be quite abundant different times of year," Dietrich said.
The other possibility? Ants.
"There are lots of different bugs out there, and they aren't easy to predict," he said. "Especially when you have swings in the weather like we've had."
The good news is while they might be annoying, they are pretty harmless and probably won't be buzzing round too much longer.
"It's really something we just have to deal with," said Dietrich. "Fortunately, these kinds of swarms only last for a few days.
